Princess Marie visits FoedevareBanken (Danish Food Bank)

On Tuesday, Princess Marie visited FoedevareBanken – the Danish Food Bank- in Copenhagen, as part of her involvement in the fight against food waste in Denmark. The NGO’s motto is “From Food Waste to Meals” (‘Fra Madspild til Maltid’)

FoedevareBanken is a nonprofit organization fighting food waste and food poverty in Denmark. The Danish Food Bank fights food waste while ensuring better food to socially disadvantaged people in Denmark: “On the one hand, huge amounts of food are discarded on a daily basis in the food sector. This means a waste of resources and it causes a great strain on the environment. On the other hand, some of the most disadvantaged people in our society are often denied the opportunity for a daily and nutritious meal, which is of vital importance to their health.”

Princess Marie was received by Karen-Inger Thorsen, Managing Director John Køppler and Project Manager Marie Uldall. During the visit, she visited the Food Bank’s warehouse and was given an introduction to how the Food Bank and the organization’s 250 volunteers handle surplus food from industry and food producers and allocate it to schools organizations for socially disadvantaged in Denmark. They also have stores in Copenhagen, Aarhus, and Kolding. The organization doesn’t receive food that is over the consumption date but food that – for many different reasons-can not be sold. This may be due to errors on the label, seasonal items, overproduction, short date or other conditions.

Princess Marie also had the opportunity to see a van being filled with a lot of sweets that were going to be delivered to socially disadvantaged people later in the day. She also met some of the volunteers who spoke about their work at the Food Bank.

 

The Danish Food Bank was founded as a voluntary association in January 2008. Thus the organization is the first initiative amongst the Nordic countries to not only reduce food waste systematically and on a large scale, but also provide healthy food to socially disadvantaged people. The Danish Food Bank only receive food from the food sector and warehouses: ” We receive a fresh surplus of food from producers, warehouses, and wholesales. 6 days a week our volunteers collect and redistribute the food to organizations working with socially disadvantaged kids, young people and adults. Our work is made possible due to the support from the many volunteering people and organizations supporting us; food donors wanting to donate their fresh surplus food, organizations wishing to receive food, volunteers offering their labor and time and last, but not least businesses and private citizens supporting The Danish Food Bank financially or with knowhow.”

The Danish Food Bank is also supported financially by foundations. Indeed, in 2013 The Danish Food Bank received 7 million euros from the VELUX FOUNDATION covering the period from 2013-2017: “The purpose of this donation was to help The Danish Food Bank expand to East Jutland, to strengthen the organization and to develop a strategy for income, thereby ensuring the organization as a financially sustainable organization.”

Princess Marie has been very involved in the fight against food waste in the past few years. She works with the Stop Wasting Food Movement (Stop Spild Af Mad), and she is Patron of the Better Food for More People – World Food Summit. She has given several interviews about the initiative and her personal experience and she also welcomed school children in her private home to teach them how to avoid food waste as much as possible.

After her visit, Princess Marie said to Billed-Bladet: “I am very impressed that so many volunteers work here. They help to distribute food to the whole country. It is a very good organization”

About the visit, the Food Bank’s Director Karen-Inger Thorsen said: “We met a very dedicated and knowledgeable princess who clearly burns for the area of ​​food waste and who was very well-prepared. A great pleasure!”

You can view a video here.

For this event, Princess Marie wore a recycled outfit. She chose her black and white Tara Jarmon clover-printed dress.

She paired it with her favorite Carlend Copenhagen ‘Aicha’ clutch and ufo black pumps dating back to 2015.

She wore new Christine Hvelplund alphabet earrings. She chose an A and H for Athena and Henrik, just like her Christine Hvelplund alphabet necklace. She also wore a new Hermes black leather bracelet (with thanks to Nuria for the close-up photo).

 

 

 

 

 

We’ll next see Princess Marie on September 16th when she and Prince Joachim will attend the official opening of the ‘EventyrDronningen’ exhibition with Queen Margrethe.